satelliteuser083 Posted April 29, 2005 Report Share Posted April 29, 2005 I read somewhere - can't remember where, sadly - about someone who had two different versions of mkd on a disk, one that was in normal use and a later version for experimentation. I seem to remember that this involved having one installation of lilo in the MBR linking to another installation (of lilo) in the partition with one or other of the two mkd versions. Sounds a bit confusing, when I think of it!! Anyway, I'd like to do the same with mkd 10.1 (my normal version) and 10.2LE for experimentation. How exactly does this have to be done and why is it not possible to manually modify lilo in the MBR to allow access to either of these two versions. I've modified lilo.config myself and it didn't seem particularly difficult. Any hints greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted April 29, 2005 Report Share Posted April 29, 2005 I'm doing it right now. My main system is 10.1 and its bootloader is on the MBR. I installed 2005 and placed its bootloader on the boot partition. Always works, just have to add an "other os" stanza in the 10.1 lilo.conf, but if done from MCC you'll have to have 2005 set up as when it runs /sbin/lilo it will tell you that you don't have a bootable partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteuser083 Posted April 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2005 Thanks polemicz, just a couple of points to clarify some confusion on my part. Assume you mean "and placed its bootloader on the boot partition (of 2005)". Also "you'll have to have 2005 set up" means that 2005 must already have been installed before attempting to modify 2001 lilo.conf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted April 30, 2005 Report Share Posted April 30, 2005 You can manually edit your /etc/lilo.conf in 10.1, but not run ./sbin/lilo and then set up 2005. Someone correct me if wrong, but you will be able to check whether you did it correctly. MCC will not allow you to add an os to your loader if the os is not there. So the most foolproof way is install 20055 with the bootloader on the root partition and then boot 10.1 and change lilo from MCC. You then reboot into 2005. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted April 30, 2005 Report Share Posted April 30, 2005 you can actually skip/disable the installation of the bootloader if you already have a functioning one on your harddisk. you simply need to edit the lilo.conf file for lilo-bootmanager or menu-lst for grub-bootmanager. e.g. you have debian installed and try to install mandriva, too, you simply skip the installation of a bootmanager when mandriva wants you to install one. then you boot into your debian system, open an editor as root and add the new mandriva system to your lilo.conf manually. then you save and reboot into mandriva. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteuser083 Posted May 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 I received my DVD of mdk 10.2 (le 2005) yesterday, installed it and, of course, it didn't work. On installation I had a serious number of 'unable to install ...PACKAGE-NAME' messages, don't know whether this had anything to do with my particular hardware config or faults on the DVD. Anyway, on reboot (only 10.1 in LILO, by the way) I selected 'linux' as usual and the system started to boot but failed to start X-Windows. On installation of 10.2 I had selected and formatted a new partition, and set the mount-point '/' to this new partition. Come to think of it, this was probably wrong and now inhibits the correct booting of 10.1. If it WAS incorrect, which mount-point SHOULD I have used? Any tips on this? Also, if the problem DOES lie with the mount-point (see above), how do I restore the '/' mount-point to 10.1? I don't know how to start X-Windows manually, so was unable to modify /etc/lilo.conf to include the new 10.2, as suggested. Couldn't even get vi to run!! Any help to any of these points would be appreciated. PS fortunately I did all this on a spare HDD, so I still have my original HDD with a working installation of 10.1. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted May 12, 2005 Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 To start x, type "startx". All any system needs is one boot loader. After installing a new os, boot into the main os, (Mandriva on mine) and edit lilo.conf to include the new os. Run lilo -v, and reboot to the new lilo menu and the new os. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteuser083 Posted May 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 Sadly was unable to get into 10.1 because 'startx' didnt work and couldn't find a suitable editor to modify 'etc/lilo.conf' with. So I reinstalled 10.1 (it gets easier every time), setting the mount-point to '/', which enabled me to get into X with access to 'root' and an editor for the modification of lilo.conf. Now I have 10.1 AND 10.2 bootable ,but this is clearly no long-term solution to the problem of multiple oot-partitions. This all occurs on my spare HDD, by the way, I still have the problem of the mount-point for an installation of a second (or further) OS, however. I must admit that I thought I understand the significance of the mount-point, but it looks as though I don't. On re-installing 10.1, I (apparently) removed '/' from 10.2, so how come I can still boot into this from lilo? Can I use any mount-point other than '/' for a new installation? Until I solve this point I am reluctant to install 10.2 on my main HDD for fear of ruining 10.1 again. By the way, polemicz, where did you get your installation of mandriva from? Mine doesn't boot correctly, thought that perhaps the DVD was faulty and a different source might solve that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 Each installation of Mandriva will need a partition mounted on /. These will need to be separate partitions. The installation only knows about its own /, not any of the others. The mount points are specified in /etc/fstab. When you install your second installation, make sure you make different partitions for it. You can use the same swap partition(s). Either install the bootloader to the partition containing /boot (usually, the / partition) or install it to floppy. That way, you have several options. You can boot the second installation from the floppy You can copy the stanza(s) of the bootloader menu for your second installation from the floppy or /etc/lilo.conf on the second installation hard drive to /etc/lilo.conf of your main installation (and run lilo) You can chainload the second installation bootloader on the second installation / partition with the proper entry in the menu of your main bootloader. Google lilo chainloader or similar to find out the syntax as I can do this in grub but don't know lilo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted May 16, 2005 Report Share Posted May 16, 2005 (edited) As root: urpmi nano (not mandatory, but it's a very easy to use console text editor). nano /etc/lilo.conf Midnight Commander is also a fine vi frontend for X-less environments (via pointing the file to edit and pressing F4). Edited May 16, 2005 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteuser083 Posted June 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2005 I used polemicz's method, which works. Thanks. The entry in lilo.conf (in 10.1) regarding 10.2 is: image=/mnt/le2005/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdk label="linux-le2005" root=/dev/hda6 initrd=/boot/initrd.img read-only which, when selected, leads to 10.2 being booted. There's just something that I don't fully understand about this boot process. I was under the impression that, on selecting this entry, the boot loader on hda6 (i.e. 10.2) would be run, giving the usual selection of 'linux', 'linux-nonfb' and 'failsafe', but all that happens is that 'linux' is run immediately, with no menu being presented. If this is correct, what is the point of writing the lilo-bootloader to the boot-partition at installation-time?? Have I made a mistake with the "other-os" stanza (syntax, perhaps) in the 10.1 lilo.conf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted June 24, 2005 Report Share Posted June 24, 2005 Well, you've specified the kernel and initrd.img to the bootloader on the MBR, so it loads that. What you need to load another bootloader is called 'chainload' in GRUB, thus my previous advice. Looking at man lilo.conf, I would suggest to make an entry like the following (then run lilo): other=/dev/hda6 label=10.2_lilo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satelliteuser083 Posted July 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 Well, you've specified the kernel and initrd.img to the bootloader on the MBR, so it loads that. What you need to load another bootloader is called 'chainload' in GRUB, thus my previous advice. Looking at man lilo.conf, I would suggest to make an entry like the following (then run lilo): other=/dev/hda6 label=10.2_lilo <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Did exactly as you suggested and IT WORKED. Thanks very much!! :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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